though it's probably the case that there will be more of them Someone pointed out below the issue of time investment in order to be an intellectual. The inter

though it's probably the case that there will be more of them Someone pointed out below the issue of time investment in order to be an intellectual. The internet makes searching, information retrieval, access to experts, etc. so much less time consuming, that it becomes perfectly reasonable to work a full time job, have a family, and still slowly build a repertoire around a subject. So that does mean more people can become intellectuals. And that increase in numbers can build momentum, but what I'm suggesting is to not just bank on that as a natural occurrence, but to actively work towards a culture of public intellectualism. Others down below let their skepticism get in the way, and that's exactly one of the problems I think we all need to overcome. Of course, it's difficult, a lot of people have grown up in a culture of anti-intellectualism, of ideological stubbornness, or of passive acceptance. Think of it this way, the first step in changing a culture is to no longer accept that a culture must be the way it is. It doesn't mean that everyone will suddenly become Noam Chomsky, but instead of simply accepting the goal as impossible, take it as a challenge: How do we get from here to there? If you want to learn physics, reading all the physics blogs on the internet is probably not as good an approach as picking up the best 20 or 30 physics books you can find and reading them cover to cover. Sure, blogs aren't great, physics books are much better, but we now also have MIT OpenCourseWare, Connexions, etc. I can almost completely get a full MIT education, sometimes including lectures, without ever having to get accepted into MIT. But the most important thing is that books and lectures aren't everything, so the next step isn't just about people taking the initiative to self-learn a subject, but to actually build free institutions where people can meet with others working in the field, hobbyists, etc. In past popular intellectual movements, that has meant something as simple as a coffee shop. LUGS are a good example of that kind of common interest organizing. In the future, more structured places of intellectualism will be necessary, much like universities, but explicitly free of charge and without any purpose of degree or accreditation. But hey, let's take it a step at a time. :)